X is kinda overloaded. Maybe "makedown"? Or something?
I just do mine in bash (make.sh) and it runs scripts from make.d/ which are in whatever (python, js bash, PHP)
This is pretty cool.
For one of my projects, I tried something similar where I had code blocks in README.md like:
Usage
-----
`pip install bar` and import `foo`:
```python
import foo from bar
```
Run `foo.alice` with default arguments:
```python
foo.alice()
```
Run `foo.bob` while specifying `baz`:
```python
foo.bob(baz=0)
```
.PHONY: demo
demo: venv
@. .venv/bin/activate; sed -n '/^```python/,/^```/p' < README.md | sed '/^```/d' | python
.PHONY: venv
venv: .venv/bin/activate requirements.txt
@. .venv/bin/activate; pip install -qU pip
@. .venv/bin/activate; pip install -qUr requirements.txt
.venv/bin/activate:
@python3 -m venv .venv
make demoIt’s great to see more tools taking advantage of the markdown syntax.
I’m the creator of Mask[0], a very similar tool built with Rust. I was originally inspired by Maid[1], which is an older take on this idea built with Node and no longer maintained I believe.
I see this is based on Node as well, and I appreciate that it currently has zero dependencies. Nice work!
That's nice, but a tool like this *HAS* to be distributed as a single binary, otherwise it's just too much hassle to bootstrap it, specially on Windows, or stripped out docker containers.
It'll be nice if you could make it level 2 headers. Reason: if we want to make it html to display as a webpage, we won't end up with multiple H1s, and we can have a H1 for like the name of the app or something.
- renamed to `makedown` - rewrote in python, since it is available out of the box on most POSIX and in GitHub actions - Updated to `### [my-command]() Explanation of command` syntax, this way GitHub highlights the commands nicely
Thank you for all the feedback
This is an interesting approach. These days I have completely switched to just[0] tool for similar use case.
Looks nice!
I used XC for a bit, which does a similar thing, but have since reverted to make. The self-documenting nature of these tools can be very useful.
Aaages ago a I built a little tool to provide a TUI for NPM scripts (https://www.npmjs.com/package/lana-cli)
If you have a README with a list of build tasks, it'll pull its content and give nicer names to whatever is placed in package.json scripts field.
(I'm using comments for that which feels clunky)
I don't update it often, but I still use it almost every day.
The growing popularity of Jupyter Notebooks has made people realize the power and convenience of mixing executable script/code with documentation, in the inverted way from normal. Normally we have code with embedded docs/comments, but in this new approach we have documents with embedded code. Opposite way around. I like where all this is going, but I have a question:
Maybe we can make the embedded code be "format independent" or have different embedding syntax to extract the code from various forms of docs? Technically Markdown is already a special case of plain ASCII text, so that's cool. But since Emacs Org Mode (which is supported even in VSCode via a plugin) we could have a way that's compatible with Org Mode as well? Or would that be replicating existing Org Mode features too much? I'm not experienced in Org Mode other than to prove that VSCode plugin works however, so that's why I have to ask.
I do something like this with https://speedrun.cc except it runs in the browser on top of your markdown in GitHub. This lets you prompt for inputs and run JavaScript and use a toolbar to context switch. For command lines it copies the command to the clipboard so you can run it.
Really like the simplicity of the project (this is a compliment, the root is not overwhelming with files). Nice that this tool uses only system libraries. Way easier to distribute a single file with leverages already installed languages.
Thanks for sharing!
For myself, I just make a directory `workflows` and put all my scripts in it, and organise related scripts into subdirectories, so that I can use tree and filesystem tools to check what subcommands are available.
Thinking about the suggestion regarding command dependencies, possibly we could add something similar to Makefile:
## [clean]() Cleans the generated files
```bash
rm -rf ./build
```
## [init]() Initializes the build folder
```bash
mkdir -p ./build
```
## [build](clean, init) Builds the project
This command depends on clean, and init, which are executed in that order beforehand.
gcc magic.c -o ./build/magicThis reminds me a bit of org-babel’s support for running blocks in any language.
I like the idea and the execution. This bit though:
> makedown.sh
> npm install -g ...
> #!/usr/bin/env python
Gives me a bit of whiplash. I get wanting to use npm to install, since 1) lots of people have it installed and 2) it’s reasonably cross-platform and it seems like makedown is as well.
I don’t see a reason for it to be named makedown.sh instead of just makedown, though. Make itself doesn’t depend on sh to my knowledge, and you could have a makedown file with no shell build rules at all.
This is actually quite neat! Thank you for building this.
Agree with the idea already stated here to use <h2> elements instead of <h1>.
That's an interesting idea you had, it makes me think of a mix between a jupyter notebook and a makefile, sort of, based on md files. I like the concept, but I need to test it to see if it fits my needs. Just a question about python and zsh, do they need to be pre-installed in your OS and accessible from PATH, that's it ?
Instead of "People spent years trying to reimplement Unix, poorly", the new (older actually, as ITS/Emacs predate Unix) motto should be "People still spents decades reimplementing Emacs, poorly". Now, with Org-Mode :)
>One can type `--help` after `x my-command` to print out the help associated with that command.
I assume that there is no support for the scripts having their own command-line arguments? Or how do you disambiguate?
Anyway, this seems like an interesting demo, but it's hard to imagine the use case.
Currently implementation is in python, since it is available in many places, but not all.
What would be pros and cons of implementing it in:
- bash/zsh
- keep in python
- rust/gopublished 0.3 version pnpm install -g @tzador/x.md
- better --help messages with or without command - ## level 2 headers are used - the temp file is created in current folder, like that importing npm modules from current project works
Some ideas:
- can capture output and be updated & displayed in the markdown doc.
- persistent kernels
Plus points for being a readable format that can be displayed great on HTML or PDF.
At the same time easy to edit and easy to enhance with different build languages as needed.
What you seek is a schema, and an exterior that can read, content assist, and validate inline after each word is typed.
Nice idea! Can I reuse variables that I have defined in e.g. a JS code block in another ZSH code block and vice versa?
This feels strictly worse than just keeping them in separate files with comments?
Just change your README to README.html, and put your build script there.
404
Hey dude: This is project looks promising. I would like to check out.
Does it support dependency handling between targets, and efficient partial remake of only the changed subtree of the dependency graph? Because what many people miss about make is the support for this, and think it is a way to make "commands" for single level recipies, and auto-complete their names in the shell. A simple shell script would be a trivial solution for that already.
Make does:
- topological sorting based ordering of the dependency tree
- skipping of already up to date targets
- supports parallel execution of independent dependency subtrees
The webpage is totally unclear on this, and to me it looks like it only allows for a named entrypoint to some script snippets.
I'm a literal programming fan though, and this is a nice start, but i recommend clarifying the docs on this.